Some Texans are stuck waiting for jobless aid
More than 350,000 unemployed Texans have received the $300 in supplemental benefits recently approved by Congress, but thousands of others will have to wait.
A surge in demand from newly laid-off workers, high numbers of people already collecting benefits and a flood of workers whose benefits expired last year but were extended by the stimulus package are contributing to the delays, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
The commission said it started paying the federal benefits last week, distributing $110 million to some 367,000 workers in the first week. The commission, however, could not provide figures on how many unemployed workers are waiting or a timetable when it would get the new benefits to all eligible workers.
In the meantime, workers report waiting as long as six hours on the phone to get information about their benefits and when they might arrive.
Among those are Crystal Valdez, a waitress who lives in El Campo. She was laid off in March, and a week later, her husband lost his job at an oil and gas company. Valdez’s benefits expired in November and her husband’s in December, she said.
The couple apply for jobs on a weekly basis, she said, but it’s hard to find openings as the coronavirus pandemic continues to batter the economy. They are far from alone. About 4 million
people across the country were unemployed for more than six months in December, more than doubling from August, according to the Labor Department.
The couple, who have four children, saved as much as they could from their benefits — including the extra $600 in the first stimulus bill — to provide some cushion if they were unable to find work before they ran out. (The $600 supplement expired in July.) But those savings are dwindling and paying the rent has become a greater challenge with each passing month.
“We just have to wait,” Valdez said of the new round of benefits. “I check just pretty much every day, all day.”
Government-ordered shutdowns were put in place in the spring to the slow the spread of the coronavirus, which drove record job losses. In response, the federal government stepped in with additional aid for the unemployed and passed the CARES Act in March. While the economy has recovered in recent months, millions of Americans — particularly those who work in consumer-facing businesses such as bars, restaurants, hotels and retail — remain out of work.
The recent surge in COVID-19 cases also has spurred a new jump in layoffs. After trending down in recent months, firsttime claims for unemployment have nearly doubled in Texas over the past two weeks to about 60,000.
Congress approved additional federal funding for unemployment benefits as a part of the $900 billion stimulus package that became law in late December after months of stalled negotiations in Congress and a lastminute opposition by the president that further delayed the aid.
The law extended benefits for those who had exhausted them during the pandemic and provided supplemental payments of $300 a week for an additional 11 weeks starting the week ending Jan. 2, said James Bernsen, a spokesman for the Texas Workforce Commission. Some of the delays in sending out benefits have been caused by bringing workers whose benefits had expired — and who are typically purged from the payment system — back in, requiring software to be rewritten.
The commission expects almost all eligible workers back in the system sometime this month.
The people purged from the system likely make up a small portion of those waiting on payments, Bernsen said. But even those in the system might have to wait for the additional benefits as the commission puts in place the new program. Bernsen said the workforce commission will send a communication in the next week or so with more information about when payments will be made.
“Usually when you’re out of the system, we can’t write you back in,” Bernsen said. “This is unprecedented. Every time (lawmakers) rewrite the legislation, we have to reprogram the system.” Catina Groves, of Garland, is another of the many Texans waiting for the new round of relief. She lost her job working at Family Dollar in March and has fallen about three months behind on her rent.
She has received some help from family, but her search for work has become more complicated because she is two months pregnant. Her doctor says she should work from home if she does find a job because of unanswered questions about how the coronavirus affects pregnant women and their babies.
But those jobs are even harder to come by, she says. In the meantime, she hopes her unemployment benefits will come through soon.
“Right now, all I can do is wait patiently and see what happens,” Groves said.